Abstract

The prevailing mentality that technology is applied science is a legacy from the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of knowledge and science. The pre-eminence of the ideal of scientific knowledge led in the modern era to the practice of regarding technology as a subset of science, and thereby to the practice of overlooking the integrity of technology. ;I assess the adequacy of classical and pragmatic interpretations of knowledge, science, and technology, and point to new terms of discourse which properly allow for the integrity of technology. One of the central differences between the early Greek and the modern philosophical conceptions is that for the classical Greeks there were two separate domains, the domain of knowledge, or episteme, and the domain of productive action, or techne. With the moderns, increasingly, and culminating in a certain sense with Dewey, we have a powerful description of practice and productive action that shows the early Greek distinction between episteme and techne to be artificial, to be itself technological. Whereas traditionally knowledge and action comprise two distinct domains, my contention is that technology constitutes the proper end of philosophical analysis, underlying both knowledge and action. ;In chapter two I demonstrate the senses in which Plato and Aristotle respectively articulate the meaning of episteme, ascribing it a primacy over techne. Analyzing the theoretical element in the classical Greek conceptions of knowledge, I examine how these conceptions have shaped early understandings of science and technology. ;In chapter three I examine the understanding of techne in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and correct a prevailing misinterpretation of the significance of techne for both thinkers. I argue that for Plato and for Aristotle, techne provides a recurring context for episteme, that is to say there is no episteme without techne. ;In chapter four I show through the eyes of Dewey how the primacy given to episteme contributed to contemporary misunderstandings of technology. I demonstrate how Dewey dislodges the episteme-based conception of technology and shows that technology as productive action is the center of philosophical discourse